online_drama

Adapting a drama lesson: THE STATUE MAKER

Adapting a drama lesson-statue maker

This is the fourth blog article written as I pause from my regular blog posts which focus on drama classroom management, integration, collaboration, and assessment to share ideas about conducting drama for remote learners in the age of online classes and social distancing.  I know there is difficulty in taking a collaborative art form and retrofitting it into the new educational parameters. I spent from April-June 2020 teaching young people drama via an online interface and beginning to design ideas for socially distant classrooms.  I will be sharing with you some of the ideas that were successful for me in doing drama with remote learners.  I am asking that you use this forum to share your ideas – you will be credited –challenges and lessons learned.  We will all be grateful to you.

In this month, I will discuss adapting a drama lesson: The Statue Maker lesson , also known as Concentration and Partner Work Lesson (found in OneStopDRAMAShop.com) adapts really well for on line instruction if you have breakout rooms available. 

In this lesson, students usually “mold” their partners into images by manipulating and shaping them.  In the “in person classroom” I share with the students that they don’t have to touch their partners or be touched, if they do not wish.  Instead they have the option of showing their partner how to move into the image or they can tell their partner what to do by giving clear instructions verbally.  For the on line work, the latter two options are shared and left up to the statue make and their partner, the clay, to decide which path they will take.   In this way, students can still practice the art of decision making (who will be the statue maker and who will be the clay) and negotiating their decision peacefully which is outlined in the lesson. 

Additional variances for the on line work: 

The teacher modeling:  When I model, I ask one student to be my partner and we first do the “Red and Blue” dialogue to determine who is the statue maker and who is the clay arriving at the “ask, don’t tell!” feature.    Next we choose one of the options (showing or verbal instructions).  Then I give a prompt for the content of the statue (e.g. create a statue of something to eat that is good for you,  create a statue of a person showing responsibility,  create a statue of a famous landmark you might see on the East Coast, etc.).  Lastly we model working until the statue is created.  

I share a step by step process with the students:

Your 1 minute Challenge:

  • - Decide who the statue maker is and who the clay is:  use the “Ask! Don’t Tell” and the Decision Making Strategy.
  • - Decide together if the statue maker will use showing or verbal instructions to make the statue.
  • - Statue Maker completes the statue based on this prompt ________________.
  • - Switch roles and do it again, if time permits.

 

The students are paired or tripled up and sent to breakout rooms to complete the 1-2 minute challenge of making their statues. 

The students return and share their statues with the entire class.  Explaining to the class what they have made.

On following days you might want to repeat the activity but this time enlarging the groups and taking it in to the realm of story.

I begin by discussing the story elements of character and action (as it relates to plot and message).

Students are grouped into teams of 3-5 depending on their age and social development.  This time when they are sent for their challenge, they are given a small script with blanks to use as a prompt for their statues.  Below are some script ideas:

  • I/we saw someone _______­­______ so I/we did ________ and then I (we) _____________ed to solve the problem. 
  • I/we saw __________ happening so I/we quickly ________ and then did ______________to help the person.
  • Because I felt______________ I sort of accidentally on purpose did ___________ which caused _________________ to happen.  So, I took responsibility and did ____________. 

The students follow the same process outlined for the first day but now they have two images (or three or four) to create in a sequence that tells the story.  Also, additional time is give 3-4 minutes.

Once they have completed their statue stories, they return to the class and share their statues as they tell their story. 

All my lessons are written as a sequence of short steps.  On OneStopDRAMAShop.com you can find this story written out in a lesson plan that you can download and break into your own steps.     The two previous articles in this blog outline several activities that can be done on line as well as for distanced classroom instruction. If you have a favorite lesson you would like me to adapt for our current situation, please write me and let me know.  Glad to assist.

 

by Karen Erickson

Karen Erickson

Adapting a drama story for remote learners

Adapting a drama story for remote learners

Drama in the Age of Covid-19  Number 3

Adapting a drama story: THE ELVES and the SHOEMAKER

This is the third blog article written as I pause from my regular posts which focus on drama classroom management, integration, collaboration, and assessment to share ideas about conducting drama for remote learners in the age of online classes and social distancing.  I know there is difficulty in taking a collaborative art form and retrofitting it into the new educational parameters. I spent from April-June 2020 teaching young people drama via an online interface and beginning to design ideas for socially distant classrooms.  I will be sharing with you some of the ideas that were successful for me in doing drama with remote learners.  I am asking that you use this forum to share your ideas – you will be credited –challenges and lessons learned.  We will all be grateful to you.

Lessons to Mini Lessons

Lessons that you find on my web site can be so much shorter than written.  Each lesson is actually broken into steps on the lesson plan.  So, when looking at a lesson you might break it into Mini lessons like this:

  • Mini Lesson Day One: Review and introduction; followed by the warm-up activity, followed by a reflection – 15-20 minutes.
  • Mini Lesson Day Two:  Reflect on day before 3-5 minutes, followed by a quick repeat of the warmup from Day One; followed by the whole or part of the body of the lesson, followed by a quick reflection.  20 minutes
  • Mini Lesson Day Three: Review days one and two; followed by a quick warm up or a repeat of an activity previously completed from the body of the lesson, followed by the final lesson activity, followed by reflection.  20 -25 minutes.  

Note:  Or you might repeat the Day Three steps over and over until you come to the end of the activity or story.

Here is an example for adapting a drama story:  The Elves and the Shoemaker.

Day One Introduction:  I ask them what they know about elves. (Optional:  I read or tell them the story.)  This is followed by everyone making up an elf dance in their “online space” at home or in their own designated area for drama at school.  Students who want to share then share their dances. Lastly, I tell them they must remember their dance for day two (I don’t really care if they change, forget, or make up a new dance but it does give a reason for them to try to memorize and to practice their movement. Two steps in the process of this art form.) They do a final practice followed by reflection on elves, the story, predicting what the story will be about – if I haven’t read or told it to them in advance, and drama skills.    I encourage them to show their parents for one more practice later that night. 

Day Two:  We warmup with reflecting on what we did Day One and everyone does their elf dance.   I tell or read the story (I always prefer telling as I can alter details…such as, in the original story there are only 3 elves but as I retell it there is a band of many elves.   In their space everyone transforms into the Shoemaker.   As I tell the story again, they imitate the Shoemaker making the shoes, selling the shoes, etc.  He works hard but is still poor.  This is the next step of the story.  We reflect comparing the two characters:  elves and Shoemaker.

Day Three:  We reflect and warmup with the elf dance.  The students imitate the elves, sneak in and sew the shoes.  Teacher plays in role as the shoemaker, finds the shoes, and sells the shoes to the students who are now townspeople.  Stop here or finish the story where the shoemaker discovers the elves, makes the clothes, the elves find the clothes and do their dance.  End with a reflection of the three days, meaning of the story, and drama skills.

So, a formerly one day lesson [pre-Covid times] becomes three days.  If one takes the time to reflect about the problem/solution, characters, message, reality and fantasy, or a host of other things....the lesson(s) become richer.  

 

All my lessons are written as a sequence of short steps.  On OneStopDRAMAShop.com you can find this story written out in a lesson plan that you can download and break into your own steps.     The two previous articles in this blog outline several activities that can be done on line as well as for distanced classroom instruction. If you have a favorite lesson you would like me to adapt for our current situation, please write me and let me know.  Glad to assist.

 

 

by Karen Erickson

Karen Erickson

More on Drama with Remote Learners

drama with remote learners

This is the second blog article written as I pause from my regular blog posts which focus on drama classroom management, integration, collaboration, and assessment to share ideas about conducting drama for remote learners in the age of online classes and social distancing.  I know there is difficulty in taking a collaborative art form and retrofitting it into the new educational parameters. I spent from April-June teaching young people drama via an online interface and beginning to design ideas for socially distant classrooms.  I will be sharing with you some of the ideas that were successful for me in doing drama with remote learners.  I am asking that you use this forum to share your ideas – you will be credited –challenges and lessons learned.  We will all be grateful to you.

A Possible Warm Up/Intro to Drama

I used the BASIC MIRROR activity (page 127 in the 181 Ideas for Drama book and available at OneStopDRAMAShop.com).  For this activity in my online classroom, I began leading all of the participants as they faced me through the screen.  I gradually made this harder with some of the additional mirror Level I activities. Throughout the activity, I would call another student’s name and they would begin leading with the rest of us following.  I would side coach to move faster, slower, be less tricky, watch to see that everyone is keeping up with you, etc.    In a socially distanced space, if students are all facing one direction and set apart from each other, the activity can be implemented by you being the leader up in the front and then asking individual students to come to the front to lead the rest of the group. 

For younger students (first – third grades) there is a story called “The Caveman” (available in the FROM PAGE TO STAGE 50 ORIGINAL STORIES FOR CLASSROOM DRAMA and available at OneStopDRAMAShop.com) that can be used as an extension to the mirror activity following the same classroom set up as above:  one leader in front and everyone following as the story is played out.  I am wondering if you could do the mirror in partners as well if there is enough distance between the partners.

If, in the socially distanced classroom, you have enough space for distant mirrors – or by using the one student in front method – you could create HAND MIRROR STORIES.  This activity works well in online situations (like Zoom) with one leader who shares their hand story with everyone, then everyone weighs in on the story.

Hand Mirror Stories 

© 1989 Karen L. Erickson

Students will:

  • Concentrate during drama experiences.
  • Identify and use dramatic structural terms accurately such as: setting, character, plot, conflict, climax, problem, obstacles and resolution along with who, what, why, where, when, and how.

Step 1:  Warm-up with the Basic Mirror activity. 

Step 2:  Have the students sit and let their hands come alive as two distinct characters: human, animal, or object.  They should move their two characters about as you might move a puppet.  Side coach them to let their two characters meet.  “Are they friendly? Enemies? Strangers? Dangerous? Kind?  On a mission of some type?”  Let them keep playing and exploring with their two characters.  Side coach them to let their characters meet up and do something together.  One of the creatures might cause a problem for the other, need help, or engage the second to do a task.  Then a problem happens they must solve together.  They solve the problem and the characters head off in opposite directions.   

Step 3:  Individual students play their hand story out in front of the group (either as an online group or Socially Distanced in front of the class) while the rest of the participants mirror the moves/story.   When the leader has finished, call on another classmate to orally retell the story as she thinks it unfolded.  The student who created the story then tells his story as he tried to communicate it.  Then the next student is called up to lead their story.  And so forth and so on.

 For social emotional learning – have the stories be about responsibility, compassion, or empathy between the two hand characters.  I recommend discussing the chosen word with the students and brainstorming examples of that word in action in daily life.

I used this activity with K-5 students in an online classroom and it worked beautifully. They loved it.  The younger the students the more coaching is needed to create the story and they will be simple and short.  Older students added a great many more details.  This is also a wonderful way to integrate with language arts and to teach details in writing.

Hang in there and keep trying.  New and innovative ideas will come out of this current situation as the struggles you have are common among all.  Send me your ideas for drama with remote learners or even your struggles and I’ll incorporate them here for all to share.

by Karen Erickson

Karen Erickson

Drama in the Age of Covid-19

drama

This is a pause in my regular blog posts focusing on drama classroom management, integration, collaboration, and assessment to share ideas about conducting drama in the age of Covid-19, Zoom and social distancing.  I know there is difficulty in taking a collaborative art form and retrofitting it into the new educational parameters. I spent from April-June this year teaching young people drama on Zoom and beginning to design ideas for socially distant classrooms.  I will be sharing with you some of the ideas that were successful for me.

A simple idea for both Zoom and socially distanced classrooms:  try WORD LIST activity (found on page 22 in the 181 Ideas book or online at onestopdramashop.com).  Word List is an activity for later elementary, middle, and upper grades that stresses memory, recall, and word association skills.  Participants do not have to interact with each other as the focus is on listening and connecting what they hear to other actors and to what comes before in a word sequence.   The leader begins with a word; the next participant adds a word to the leader’s creating a string.   The word they add must associate with the leader’s word.  The next participant repeats the first two words and adds a word associated with the word added last.  This continues around the room for one, two, or three cycles….creating a longer and longer string of associated words.  Challenges can be added:  stop and have the activity continue the reverse way around the room or have them start the sequence from end of list reciting all of the words back to the beginning.   

On Zoom and in Socially Distanced Classrooms – use the basic FREEZE.  The Freeze activity works well with all students K-High School.  On Zoom, my signaling device worked well.  They could hear it and react.  I wasn’t so concerned with their holding absolutely still…when we debriefed it was more about self-reflection and overcoming their struggle with concentration.      You can find the basic Freeze and variety of other freeze activities on page 37 of the 181 Level One Ideas for Drama book or on the website.  I was able, with the later elementary, middle, and high schoolers, to move this into the CRAZY SHAPES activity (pg. 37 in 181 Level One Ideas for Drama and on the website). Students who could think of ideas for their crazy physical shape held still and were called on to answer a question like:

               You are at a birthday party and someone just took your photo, what are you doing?

               You are at a beach and someone just took your photo, what are you doing?

               You are on the playground and someone just took your photo, what are you doing?

                              For social emotion learning:

               You are helping someone who is being teased, what are you doing?

               You are helping someone who is injured, what are you doing?

               You are showing kindness to someone in your classroom, what are you doing?

               You are helping out at home (or in the classroom or the neighborhood), what are you doing?

 We observed each actor on Zoom as they shared their idea for their physical shape. 

CRAZY SHAPES will not work as written in person to person classrooms which are in tightly confined socially distanced spaces…but I am imagining that you might have them move just the upper part of their body then freeze them, then ask them one of these questions:

               You are in the water; what are you doing?

               You are performing in a movie (circus, etc.) what are you doing?

               You are a trained animal:  what animal are you and what are you doing?

               You are sitting on a bus; what are you doing?

Repeat having them move just the lower part of their body. 

 

Please let me know if this is useful content for you.  If so, I have many more activities to share that move into dialogue, scene work, stories, and creative thinking.  I wish I were there to do this with you, but for now, this will have to do.

Your feedback is essential.

 

by Karen Erickson

Karen Erickson